propogation mats

[luckycrank]

I have grown from seed the last 2 seasons - tomatoes, peppers and herbs with some success.

I have never had any issues except for mold grownig on seedling last year which killed the majority of them however I still managed enough to get by

although my tomato plants end up tall and skinny the turn out all right and yeilded great.

I invested in some flourecent grow lights last winter.

other then speeding up the proccess of germintaion are there any other benefits to purchasing a heat mat

I remember something about a fan , and bloom fertilizer

refresh my memory please!

thanks people

[Nainoa]

They are tall and skinny probably because you let them have heat for too long.

Once they germinate on the mats, get them off the heat within 24 hours... Cool temps will encourage them to grow thicker stocks. Heat causes them to grow too fast and get leggy.

The bloom fertilzer is to get them phospherous... You'll notice purple beginning to form under the cotyledon leaves as a first sign of needing to hit it with the K+ fertilizer.

I made a great blunder today... I was putting up my pepper plants... Got them all potted from the plugs... All 98 of them... As I was setting the last one in, I thought to myself "Why did I plant 98 green peppers?"

And that's when my brain came off of "Auto Pilot" and I remembered that I didn't plant 98 green peppers... But I did plant 48 of them and 50 Jalapeno!

I'm going to have to wait weeks for them to develop into juveniles so I can sort which one is which!

[luckycrank]

I haven't had any heat mat until this year and havent even bought one yet

was just considering it.

they are kept at about 64 deg and potted up once or twice .once warmer air comes I move them to a 3 season porch on the north side of the house.

although I use flourescent lighting while growing indoors

I was thinking maybe indirect sunlight may be a issue, causing them to stretch for sun, being right under a shaded south window.

could to much light cause an issue ?

[Nainoa]

64 is a little on the warm side... But not to a crazy amount.

If it's not soil temps, then the light thing is the most likely culprit to cause legginess.

Not rotating plants daily through an exposure light, can cause it... But that's like 2-3 days without rotating the seed cups if they are getting all their light from a southern exposure window. So you would see that coming etc...

Too much distance from your grow lights can also be an issue... As a rule of thumb you want the grow light and the top of the plants to not be farther than 4 inches apart.

A combination of Growlights and sunlight... If your grow lights are timed later than sunrise, and you're not rotating the cups, the plants will try to lean towards the early morning sun. This is easily countered by setting the timer on your lights to 15 minutes before sunrise.

And of course a combination of a little bit of each of these all added up can add up to them getting leggy.

[flipper]

All very good advice. Also, when I repot I usually trim the bottom leaves off and transplant them deep. Those little hairs you see on the stem will turn into roots. Having a huge root ball is the most important thing to me when I transplant the tomatoes into the garden.

[Nainoa]

Yeah I'll repot to the very bottom leaves... But I don't pluck any that aren't already to go... Once upon a time I plucked a bunch which exposed the stem... And I was using some cheaper potting soil that must not have been 100% sterile... On all the plants that I plucked I developed a fungus or a mold.

So now even though I use good potting soil... I don't pluck leaves in the seedling stage, unless it cotyledon leaves that have already begun to dry up at that particlar age of the plant etc...

[luckycrank]

finally was able to get a heat mat go it set up with the seedling flats over night and stabalized temps @ 79-85deg .

As indicated before the area I have grown in the past has an average air temp of 64-67 deg and also in front of a south facing window. and used a flourecent grow set up.

I have selected a spot in my basement next to the furnace and set a bucket with an inch or so of moistened jiffy potting mix in bottom and tested the temp today after 24hrs it measured at 52 deg. 54 deg air temp

with flourecent lighting would this be suitable conditions ?

[Nainoa]

finally was able to get a heat mat go it set up with the seedling flats over night and stabalized temps @ 79-85deg .

As indicated before the area I have grown in the past has an average air temp of 64-67 deg and also in front of a south facing window. and used a flourecent grow set up.

I have selected a spot in my basement next to the furnace and set a bucket with an inch or so of moistened jiffy potting mix in bottom and tested the temp today after 24hrs it measured at 52 deg. 54 deg air temp

with flourecent lighting would this be suitable conditions ?

Yeah... You should be "Golden like Pony Boy" from the sounds of it.

[luckycrank]

lol thanks

[luckycrank]

got a timer set up on my lights standard day light hours? shorter? , longer?

[Nainoa]

I've played with this in the past... And I've come to the conclusion that in general I want to be close to the sunrise... And then if you have them in a window and under lights... Set the timer to go off 15 minutes before actual sunrise, so they don't lean towards the window right off the bat in the day.

Tomatoes are "Short Day" plants. Meaning they detect the summer solstice, and as the days grow shorter it encourages them to flower and set fruit more and faster.

So say you've got the tomatoes running on a crazy long 20 minute day to give them max growth... Then it comes planting time and you put them outside into a 15 hour day...

If they've got the minimum soil temp to set fruit, they'll detect the day length chance and start flowering in late May.

(Earliest I've ever had was June 23rd for a ripe tomato)

Which on the face of it might sound good at first... But a tomato is essentially a sugar machine and to make sugar it need a lot of lush thick foliage and a strong set plant first.

You get better flavor and a much higher over all yeild if you just focus on getting a big lush plant growth from planting to about the 4th of July. (Then start suckering) and let the plant do it's thing.